Page 31 of Kissing Kayley
“You act like we’re about to risk dysentery on the Oregon Trail,” I snarked as he helped me carry everything to the check-out counter.
He grinned. “Well, at least we’ll be the best-dressed corpses out there.”
That time, he laughed with me.
CHAPTER 13
Kayley
I thought after we dropped our new purchases in our room that we might explore outside but, instead, we headed downstairs.
To the Dungeon.
I nervously hesitated outside the double doors where a man stationed there respectfully nodded to us but didn’t speak.
“What’s the plan here?” I asked Vic.
“Just to look around,” he assured me, resting a hand in the small of my back. “That’s all.”
The man opened the door for us and in the foyer handed us off to a cheerfully helpful woman who went over the rules, encouraged us to ask as many questions as we wanted, and briefly pointed out the various features before turning us loose to…
Explore.
There were several themed private rooms, only one of which seemed to currently be occupied. A changing room with lockers was probably more helpful for people who weren’t staying on-site, but there were also costumes available, which I wasn’t reallyin the mood to explore yet. Plus a bar. While it might have been five o’clock somewhere, here it was still morning and I was not in the mood for alcohol.
Down in the main play area, a man was tying up a woman with blue ropes. She wore a G-string and nothing else.
Vic steered me toward the seating area where we had a clear view of the play going on six steps below us.
He leaned in. “This is something I’d like to learn more about,” he softly said.
I remembered there was a 101 rope class listed on the schedule. “I might be willing to be tied up like that, as long as it’s safe,” I said.
The ropework looked beautifully intricate. The couple didn’t speak loudly enough for us to hear them over the unobtrusive music, but from their body language, it was quite obvious they were involved with each other to some extent.
I’d seen pictures and watched videos of shibari and other forms of rope bondage, but I was definitely not an expert. Some of what I’d viewed could absolutely be called art.
I wasn’t a fan of the ties that veered into sadistic territory, though.
But, again, to each their own.
About twenty minutes in, I was aware of another couple, a man and a woman, who entered the space. He wore jeans and a black leather vest over a long-sleeved black shirt with the sleeves neatly rolled up to his elbows. She wore a delicate black leather collar with a leash attached to it and a thigh-length black dress over black leggings and plain black ballet flats.
I watched Vic turn his head slightly, study them, then give them a barely perceptible nod no one else likely would have recognized.
The man nodded back and then he and the woman settled onto a sofa on the far side of the viewing area and focused on the bondage scene.
I leaned in and whispered in Vic’s ear. “That’s them, right?”
“Shh,” he said. “Just watch.”
Which in and of itself gave me the answer: they were our secret shadows.
I couldn’t fault my brother for sending them but it simultaneously irritated me. I’d wanted this vacation to be just Vic and me without having to worry who might see us.
Or what they might see us doing.
Phones weren’t allowed in the Dungeon, but I didn’t like the thought of people from our “world” who knew our true identities witnessing intimate moments between us.
